


The Glow in the Sky

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-30 01:41:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1012520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Red sky after storming, Jim's warning...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Glow in the Sky

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sentinel Thursday

It hadn't been the best of days; dull and overcast, with intermittent rain, thunder rumbling, echoing, making it impossible to tell how far away it was. Not even Jim could judge from the brightness of the lightning flashes how far distant the storm actually was.

Jim and Blair had spent most of the day in their tent. At one point, during a dry spell, they went down to the nearby river and spent half an hour fishing, but then the rain started again, and they retreated - with, however, a fish each, enough for dinner than evening.

It was late afternoon when the rain (and the thunder) finally stopped. Jim judged that it had _had_ stopped, rather than catching its breath for another downpour, and they built a fire - having stored some wood under the flysheet, they weren't short of dry wood.

The fish were juicy, tasty, and big enough to satisfy both men.

As it got dark, they sat on opposite sides of the fire, appreciating the heat from it, drinking coffee and talking spasmodically, comfortable with silence.

After a while, Blair said, "That's odd - there's a definite red glow in the sky... like the way you can see the lights from the city against the clouds."

Jim turned to look behind himself, and stiffened. He sniffed, scenting the air, and scrambled to his feet. "Move, Chief! The forest is on fire - that's what we're seeing, the light of the flames reflected by the clouds!" He was already headed for their tent before Blair had time to stand.

Acting from sheer force of habit, Blair spared a moment to throw the water from their canvas bucket over their fire before he joined Jim, who had already started to get the tent down, leaving their sleeping bags, etc, still inside it. He'd taken down the poles and zipped the tent shut. Blair helped him pull out the tent pegs, then together they threw the tent with its contents into the bed of the truck, the pegs rattling onto it as they, too, landed there. They looked around, sparing a few more seconds to collect the handful of items still lying around and the bag of food hanging from a convenient tree, throwing all of them into the bed of the truck and pulling a tarpaulin over everything before jumping into the cab.

Blair was still fastening his seatbelt as Jim floored the accelerator, turning the truck in a tight circle and heading down the track that led to the main road.

There was no other road; and this one went uncomfortably close to the area that both men judged was burning.

They could only see the red in the sky occasionally, through the trees, but it was getting brighter.

And then Jim slammed on the brakes, and the truck skidded to a halt beside a small tent. Two bicycles were leaning against trees near it; there was a light shining through the tent wall.

Both Jim and Blair jumped out and ran to the tent. "Hello!" Blair yelled.

The tent door zipped open and a head appeared. "Hello?"

"Fire," Blair said. Jim was already throwing the first bicycle onto the bed of the truck. "We guess it was a lightning strike, and the forest between here and Cascade is burning. We can give you a lift, but you have to hurry."

Again they spared a few minutes to pull the tent down and throw it onto the truck - Jim had already added the second bicycle. Blair scrambled in and squeezed over beside Jim; the two young men - neither of them more than seventeen or eighteen, he guessed - squashed in as well, and the moment the passenger door was shut, Jim set off again.

The sky was showing more and more red with every passing minute, and soon they could smell the smoke. And then ahead of them they saw flames; trees burning on each side of the road.

Jim took a deep breath, gritted his teeth and without reducing speed carried on between the burning trees and, twenty or thirty yards further on, into clear, unburned woodland. He released the breath he had been holding, but continued to drive at speed for another two miles until he reached the main road. He turned onto it and headed for Cascade.

"Where are you lads from?" Blair asked.

"Seattle," one of them said. "I'm Ian Newcome - this is my brother Harry. We're on holiday... "

"Blair Sandburg, and my friend is Jim Ellison. We were having a fishing weekend."

"You were deeper into the forest than we were - how did you know?"

"We saw the glow of the flames against the clouds, and decided to get the hell out," Blair said. "Just as well - much longer and we wouldn't have been able to drive through the flames - a lot of trees do remain standing after a fire, but some - or some branches - would probably have fallen and possibly blocked the road. And much longer and the strip in flames would have been wider, and even Jim wouldn't have been able to drive through it."

"All we can say is thank you for stopping and picking us up," Ian said. "We had no idea... "

"It was just lucky we were still sitting outside our tent," Blair said.

"What do you want to do once we reach Cascade?" Jim asked.

"If you could drop us off at a motel, we'd be grateful," Ian said.

"That's easy done," Jim replied as two fire engines passed them, quickly followed by several more.

Blair shook his head. "It's going to take planes dropping water, and probably a good downpour, to put that fire out," he commented, knowing that if they hadn't picked up the Newcomes Jim would have wanted to wait for the fire service and offer his help. And while he sympathized with that, he was very, very glad that circumstances meant that Jim wasn't going to risk his life.

***

With their unexpected passengers - and their equipment - dropped off, Jim turned the truck towards home.

They carried their gear upstairs and piled it in a corner; not even Jim wanted to deal with it that night. He was tired - the strain of driving along the forest road and through the strip of burning woodland was beginning to tell on him, and it was getting late.

"Red sky after storming," Blair said. "Jim's warning..."

"Doesn't have the snap of the original, Chief," Jim told him.

Blair laughed. "Let's get to bed."

They checked the locks, visited the bathroom, and headed for bed, both men quietly hoping that there had been no other parties camping in that part of Cascade National Forest.


End file.
